The petri dish helps scientists and researchers to better identify bacteria and the diseases they caused.

Today, Google via their home page doodle celebrates the birth of Julius Richard Petri who invented the petri dish.

Julius Richard Petri was born on May 31, 1852 and died on December 20, 1921.

He would have been 160 years old today.

Petri studied medicine at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Academy for Military Physicians in Berlin . He then went on to work at the Imperial Health Office with Robert Koch who is considered the father of modern bacteriology.

Google's doodle features six petri dishes which when one clicks on the play button are swabbed by a hand. Images of bacteria grow and spread in the dishes. These bacteria go on to form the alphabeths that spell Google.

It is interesting to note that Petri was not the first to use agar, a substance made from algae to grow bacteria but he invented the standard dish in which it was done.

The petri dish helps scientists and researchers to better identify bacteria and the diseases they caused. Petri dishes later moved from the laboratory to classrooms where they are used by every student of biology for various experiments.